Half-Life 2 comes to 360, Team Fortress 2 included with Episode 2, and Valve likes things that comes in twos

Valve had a lot to say about their new products during EA's press spectacular …

Mark Rein may not think episodic gaming is the wave of the future, but Valve's Gabe Newell certainly has big plans for it. Hot on the heels of the success of Half-Life 2 Episode 1, Mr. Newell has made some big announcements about what we can expect from the Half-Life franchise in the next year. How big? Let's just get it all out there: Episode 2 will include Team Fortress 2 as the built-in multiplayer, and it will arrive on the PC and 360 simultaneously. Even better? The 360 version will include all the Half-Life 2 content. So if you missed out on the PC version and weren't satisfied with the XBox port, you have something to brighten your day.

This is a lot to dump on us, and according to Gamespot Team Fortress 2 is sporting an unorthodox art style that brings to mind games like No One Lives Forever. This was all announced at EA's annual summer press event, and while I was hoping for some Spore news, I'll gladly accept all this Valve news. It looks like EA is really pushing Valve properties; they have to be excited about the possibility of all that Half-Life 2 content on the 360, which should be a sure thing at retail. According to Gamespot it will even include CS: Source. Very, very cool.

Valve certainly seems to be keeping busy. At the event, they talked about a game they called Portal, which uses the portal idea from Prey in the form of the gun. I'm not exactly getting how that's going to work, but it sounds like another intriguing title coming to us via Steam. We'll keep you posted as more details on any and all of these announcements becomes available.